The title is a description of my old life...but these days I ramble on about widowhood, homeschooling, single parenting, adoption, special-needs parenting, & living a life I never planned for or expected - a life that God, thankfully, continues to strengthen & equip me for daily...

Saturday, December 8, 2012

(There's Gonna Be) Days Like This

The last 7 days have been a bit rough. Hunting season started last Sat and went through Wed. That meant that I was up at 5:30 each of those mornings making a decent breakfast for the hunters and then spent the morning in the kitchen making a good noon-time meal for them. My body is not made to arise that early! It's just...unnatural. And for all that effort, the guys (Paul, Will, and two friends) only brought down two button bucks. They were hoping to fill 7 tags. This was the worst year, ever. It was pretty warm, which didn't help. Both Paul and Will had brand-new hunting gear to wear and it was too warm to even wear them! We butchered up the little bit we had last night - may feed us for a month or so. I'll be curious to see how God intends to provide now.

And then, Lizzie has had a really, really, REALLY rough week, behavior-wise. That means Mom has had a really, really, ROUGH week, too! A couple of days in there she was just golden, so I know she's capable of choosing good behavior. Yesterday was awful. We went to Jefferson for Ben's and my allergy appointments. I brought along Sam and Lizzie. Before we went in I warned all 3 what kind of behavior I expected. By the time I was on the table, being worked on, Lizzie was throwing a raging tantrum, screaming and thrashing. It was so bad the dr. had to intervene and get her settled. I could have just died - I was angry and embarrassed. The dr. assured me afterwards not to worry about it - that she would "only be little for a little while." That didn't help much. Why does motherhood have to be so humiliating at times? I know my personality is such that I expect my kids to be well-behaved at all times. For the most part they are. And when they're not -ooh, boy. Things are not going to be pleasant between Mom and Child! But I also know that's why I really struggled when Ben went through his rough time a few years ago and why I'm struggling now with Lizzie. I have high expectations of behavior for everyone in my life. That has caused me lots and lots of disappointments, angst, and grief over the years.

We had another counseling session Tuesday. I was kind of looking forward to it. So far, the counselor has offered up some helpful information and I've gained insight into the girls' hurts and brain development. I'm really looking, though, for more "meat." I want to do know what to do when certain behaviors raise their ugly heads. So far, the counselor has spent most of her time explaining to me what has happened to the girls' brains and suggesting bonding activities for us (very helpful). I used the term "deliberate disobedience" when explaining to her what we were dealing with. She told me I needed to get that terminology out of my vocabulary because there is no such thing as deliberate disobedience when it comes to young children. That's because they are not capable of choosing to obey or disobey. They just do - whatever - I guess.

My jaw about hit the floor. Paul said if he'd been there he would have walked out. You know, I don't have an advanced degree. I don't even have an undergraduate degree, since I decided marriage and motherhood were more important to me than spending more time and money pursuing a career I didn't even want in the first place. I'm sure this counselor has her master's degree at the minimum. But I am not an idiot, either. You cannot tell me that children are incapable of making disobedient choices. Babies can make these choices. I noticed with all of mine that somewhere around 10 months they would look me square in the eye and choose to do their own thing, knowing full well what I expected.

So, wow - this counselor is obviously not going to be that much help. I'll probably go back, but I'm going to be stretching out the appointments farther and farther apart. It's disappointing when I have to pick through everything she says (like digging all the vegetables out of beef stew) to try to find something that I can agree with and use. There are some Christian counseling centers in the area. I'm not sure if they would take state insurance, but all I can do is check.

Neat Adoption quote I ran across this week by a guy named...well, I can't read my handwriting where I scribbled this down off Facebook, actually. I think his last name is "Loux." It doesn't matter since I don't know who he is anyway.

Adoption is redemption. It's costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him.

I've been thinking a lot about this. I had never really thought about adoption as redemption, but it is. It's giving a person a second chance at a good life. That's exactly what God did for us. We were all doomed with no chance at all. But he rescued us through the cross, just as Paul and I are rescuing these little girls. I kind of hesitate to say it like that, though, because that makes it sound like we are super-heroes and we're not. We're not saints and we're getting a whole lot of enjoyment out of the deal, too. It has been nothing short of pure joy to add two more children to my brood and to have girls at last just kind of tops it all off! Of course, there is a certain amount of pain-in-the neck-ness, too about the process.

And adoption is NOT natural. These kids were not born to me, carry nothing of my gene pool in their little bodies, come from an entirely different culture and race, but yet they're becoming mine, just the same. How does that happen? Is love really all it takes? It truly is an outrageous notion to think that one can graft another person into their family tree, lineage, and heritage for future generations. But somehow, it works.